"Glad you love your rabbits, but as a gardener, I cannot concur. Rabbits might be cute, but they do a lot of damage -- if they get in my garden, it's going to be time for Brunswick stew. Hope your neighbors microchip their cats with you around -- everyone with pets should do that, as well as spay and neuter. As for dogs, they kill small animals and send more people to the hospital than cats ever could. When the squirrels and chipmunks and field mice start working on your house, you'll wish you had a cat around. Just sayin.'"----"Black people: police are not targeting you. When you get pulled over for speeding and you are speeding, that's not racial profiling. It's you breaking the law and getting a ticket for it. If police don't ticket you, but stop to ask you to move your car from a no-parking area, it has nothing to do with skin color. It is because you are in a no-parking area. If you got that boom ping ping and the police stop you for noise ordinance violation, you got stopped for violating the noise ordinance, and please don't pretend it's cuz you are black. No it's cuz that stereo is too loud. A stop sign means stop, a yield sign means yield, speed limit signs are not just for show, and blinkers are on your car for a reason -- use them. Every time you play the race card, you are weakening the fight against real racism, because it's crying wolf to people, and if something really happens to you and you've been playing this game all these years, who's going to listen when it's for real? I see a lot of white people pulled over by CPD and RCSO, so don't feel so special. Traffic laws are for everyone, and the police got too much else to do in this county to be wasting time picking on you. Man up and take responsibility for your actions and stop playing the victim."----"I understand that African Americans have been taught very well to look for racial discrimination in every tough situation but it is out of hand. The 'race card" should never be used unless it is blatantly true. As a black man trying to raise kids the right way, I see sorry individuals trying to use lies to get what they want by playing race. It further divides our community and breaks the good parts of the system down along with the bad parts. But hey, Mr. Sorry Ghetto Fabulous, who is too busy running around to raise his kids right, doesn't care about anything but himself while the rest of us suffer for his stupidity and lack of morals. It makes me sick to see bad parents pulling the race card to get their sub-par athlete son more playing time or misbehaved child out of trouble. ... If we keep doing this it will be bad. It will ruin our country if we don't stop it. White people are too afraid to stand up for themselves on this issue so the good black people need to keep telling our stupid cousins to quit actin' a fool."----"As a parent, I wish this paper would do an in-depth story about the latest cheerleading drama at RCHS. I was finally happy with the cheerleading coach for this coming year. She is young, energetic and dedicated to excellence and discipline. Her biggest hurdle was going to be getting rid of some kids on the team who constantly break rules and get away with it and cause problems on the team by stirring up dissension and setting bad examples for the younger ones. But the new coach made the correct cuts at tryouts so it looked like this year was going to be great. But, as you guessed, those kids come from bad parents and the parents went complaining to the weakest link in this organization, the principal. Not the coach, not the athletic director. Maybe the principal tried to be tough and the county office is weak. But the girls who were cut got put back on the squad and the good coach naturally stepped down. So the bad kids learned to stay bad and the good kids lose a good coach. We were very close to breaking out of the bad attitude on this team but the bad parents win again. I will be glad when this system gets this right. Till then, I will just have to show my kid what is right even though she sees the school failing and justifying wrong decisions."----"I think our school system bigwigs have it backwards. They are leaning toward tying teacher pay to scores and performance. I thought that was interesting when I first heard it because most companies I have worked for in the past did just the opposite. The real performance of the company depended on management and they were the ones who were punished based on how the company did. If there is a problem in a school, we have over 50 people in the school system making $90K or more who should be getting it fixed. I think it's funny that those people have come with an idea to tie the salaries of low-paid teachers to success of the schools when it's the high-paid gold badges that are making policy decisions like keeping poorly behaved students in the classrooms."----"Dear RCPS management types. If you want the graduation rate to go up, you need to expel a lot of middle school students. This is key. Once they get into ninth grade, you girly girls are afraid to expel them because that will hurt the graduation rate. So do it while they are in middle school. Get them out of the system. Brundage, Budensiek, Baker, and Autry, you guys are all making well over $100K per year and you should be earning that money by removing the discipline issues. Baker, you know it's wrong to let bad parents bully this system. All of you guys can see it's ruining our education here. It is time to step up and run this system the right way. Bad discipline and poor decision-making from management is what robs teachers of the joy of teaching. Promote the joy of teaching like you used to do by not putting up with foolishness."----"I have one thing to tell our school board and county office. You need to expel some students. Period. If you want us to support you, you will identify the top behavior problems in our high schools and middle schools and expel them. Show us that you care about the good kids. Expel the top 20 behavior issues from each school and expel them in a quick and efficient fashion so that the parents can say nothing. Get this county on the news for the extreme number of expulsions. Let the whole metro area know that we are not putting up with foolishness. Get the word out that we expel kids if they start acting wrong. If you do this you will get my vote and you will see scores rise. If I am wrong, someone please post a response. I do not see any problem with this logic. If the system lawyer, Jack Lance, says it can't be done, then cut him loose. He is worthless and is part of the problem with his $197K salary. Find a bulldog lawyer that is passionate and innovative enough to make it happen and dedicated to keeping the schools safe and conducive to learning. Enough foolishness!"----"Would the Citizen please add a link/tab for the Police Blotter? Like you have for the Citizen Poll. The Police Blotter list is incomplete as earlier ones were called Jail Blotter so do not appear. Also, the April 20, 2012, Rockdale Blotter has a date typo. We subscribe to the Citizen but do not keep the paper copies. We wanted to look up a Police Blotter for January or February but it is next to impossible to find it online the way they are labeled."----"To the individual that accused the Conyers Police Department of being racially biased in last Sunday's poll ... were you angrier about feeling as though you were being targeted as a black person or just for being stuck longer in the heavy traffic? Stop relying on your race as a reason to justify every predicament that you find yourself wrapped up in. Very few citizens feel this way any longer. It's 2012!"----"I was wondering why I haven't seen my granddaughter's picture in the paper? Someone took her picture at school for being Student of the Month for February, and we were told it would be in the Rockdale Citizen. I may have overlooked it possibly, but I don't think I have ever seen any children's pictures for this accomplishment printed yet. Please let me know what information, if any, you have on this? The school is Hightower Trail Elementary. She also made honor roll and it wasn't mentioned either. Thanks for your time."

Editor's note: We have published all of the Students of the Month photos that we received for February. It's possible that we have not yet received that submission. Not all schools submit honor rolls to the Citizen for publication. We have not received an honor roll from Hightower Trail for the previous grading period.----"I'm trying to understand our BOC. While Oden and Nesbitt felt compelled to comment on the Trayvon Martin case (which is in Florida) and commend people for showing up at a protest, they completely ignored two citizen heroes who risked their own lives to stop a crime that happened right in our own county in broad daylight by a serial perp. We have seen several stories in this paper recently about neighbors stopping break-ins in their neighborhoods or helping cops catch the burglars, but the BOC had no comment or commendation on any of those. No, they don't want to talk about what goes on every day here in the county, they want to talk about a case where some wingnut shot someone, and then paint it as though this is something that happens every day, everywhere, all the time. Well it isn't, but you know what is happening every day, commissioners? Every day criminals are coming into Rockdale and looking for things to steal and people they can victimize. That is happening every day, and every one of those days, there are ordinary citizens put in extraordinary situations where their lives may be at stake -- and you, commissioners, you're too busy planning parties with DeKalb County politicos and backslapping each other for the 'accomplishments' you think you've made to see what shape this county is really in. Wish I could say you cared, but I can't, because it's too obvious that you don't think for yourselves, you only think of yourselves. I'm glad that at least there are people in our county that think of others and who act upon that compassion -- because they're the people that can turn this county around, not self-absorbed BOC members."----"Have we as a community given up on finding the killer of Dequavious Mapp? I really wish we could make the killer pay for what they did. Plus the man that held a party in his house for underage gang-members just got away with a slap on the wrist. He should be under the jail for having that party with high school kids just to pay his rent."----"The Rockdale County Fire and Rescue 911 Department is severely understaffed at its 911 Operations Center. It is my understanding that the department is down the equivalent of one full shift of employees and one or more supervisors. Given the fact that this department runs 12 hours per shift, this is an unacceptable figure. The operators at the 911 Center are the core of the entire Public Safety operations. They are the kind people who dispatch an ambulance and fire trucks to our citizens. They dispatch deputies in any situation. They communicate with the public, ambulance personnel, firefighters and deputies, all while maintaining an upbeat attitude and the patience of saints. Due to the deficit of available staff, the operators are being required to work five 12-hour shifts per week, while running the outdated phones and radios with the less than the required amount of operators per shift. If an employee should become ill or have any other type of emergency, then the current schedule would require an operator to work six 12-hour shifts. This is a 72-hour work week, which is unreasonable at best. This type of high demand per operator is putting unnecessary stress on these very valuable employees. The citizens of Rockdale are facing a true emergency if this situation is not resolved soon. We all deserve and pay for an efficiently run Public Safety Department. I urge every citizen of Rockdale to read the job postings on www.rockdalecounty.org. The requirements are very stringent and the pay very little considering the experience they are looking for. I also challenge the Board of Commissioners to consider giving its dedicated long-term 911 staff a substantial pay increase to ensure they stay in Rockdale County and do not use their talents in other surrounding counties that offer substantially higher compensation with less stress."----"Wilson's new plan is not going to work. All passport money needs to go to the general fund. We do not need a panel deciding on which charities are most favored. Rather than put money into hands of yet another bickering panel, all of that money needs to go into the county's general fund to help cover the cost of running this county. If the BOC is truly concerned about transparency, they would put the money where it can truly be accounted for. We don't need a three-legged stool, and we don't need Wilson to tell the county how county-obtained money is spent."

Comments

I would like to know who the commentor is that made the comments about Black people and how the police is not profiling them. Even though you say that you are black you made a lot of assumptions in your comments apparently because you haven't been stopped. Are you a LEO who works in Rockdale? How can you know what someone else is thinking, in this case an officer who pulls someone over? And just because you have cousins whom you feel are stupid and "act the fool" doesn't mean my relatives act the same. Oh by the way are you saying that all blacks are cousins? You FOOL! I totally agree that there is a serious problem with behavoirs in todays society and that as you put it parents who don't "care about anything but themselves" but, I have news for you sir, blacks or not the only ones with such selfish traits. You have a right to your opinon as I do to mine but you should think before you get on a public forum and make racist comments about people who may be the same color as you but many show a lot more intelligence. One last comment, there is no doubt that there are low lifes in all races and that their are some ignorant people who do use the race card when the issue is about right or wrong irregardless of skin color. You should use the pseudonym Mr. Self Righteous

Funny...you say that they should use more intelligence...yet you can't use the correct form of "their" it should be "that THERE are some ignorant..." not their... I'm sure the cuz reference was a form of sarcasm that an intelligence person should recognize. Maybe you are the Self righteous one. And proof your comments..." I would like to know who the commentor is that made the comments..." Run on sentence much? Couldn't you have shortened that by stating. "I would like to know who commented about..." Let me guess you conversated before while you were typing this and were distracted instead of conversing.... On another note, high five to the black men that made the comment about trying to raise his kids right!!! The woman cried wolf about being "profiled" by RCSO or CPD was not hired to direct traffic...what if she had been hit, it would've been her own fault. The police were just doing their job.... Sorry she got her feelings hurt...What's next they were sexually discriminating against her too by asking her to move her car??? Excuses, excuses, excuses... Why can't people just admit they are wrong instead of blaming ol' Whitey???

I stand behind my comments and frankly after reading theoriginal comment I was enraged to the point of having to edit out some of my response. KimberlyD maybe i can only surmise that you too was distracted when you typed in your response that an intelligence person...I'm not with the CIA or any other covert organization. As far as proofing my comments you should do the same. You also must be a mind reader since you are "sure" the cuz reference was a form of sarcasm. As far as run on sentences, I couldn't tell where the different comments ended and another began when reading them online. And to heresyafcts it all depends on your perspective, how so? If the same officer or officers have become known in the community as "the one" who always stop or have a high incidence of stopping , arresting, or ticketing people of color. Some people just have to have the last word I understand that have a nice day.P.S. I didn't proof read this either.

OOps...intelligence person...epic fail on my end. and yeah my comments were separate by a series of periods "..." for example. heresyafcts...I read the article and I agree. Reverse discrimination occurs more than anyone realizes.

Frankly, my dear...I don't care. I typed my poorly written comment about her poorly written comment in the wee hours. I work odd hours and my husband was asleep when I typed it. But she was "enraged" when she edited out her response....errr. responses. And as always...I like reading your comments mustardandbiscuit (mmmhmmm in Billy Bob Thorton voice)!!